You are currently browsing the yearly archive for 2007.
I can’t believe it, yet again Comcast has tried to assign our phone number to a new client. This has been going on for over three years now. A while back I used Comcast phone service along with their data and cable. The phone service was no better or cheaper then Ameritech, so bailed (which they didn’t care at all when I left, nothing like customer retention). I switched off of Comcast to go to Vonage and ported my number over to Vonage. I filled out the needed paperwork and faxed it in, and Vonage took care of re-addressing my phone number to their network, or however that is done in telephony land. It took almost a month for Comcast to release the number, I spent countless of hours on the phone with both carriers trying to figure out what is going on. Eventually, it was straightened out and I was well on my way to Vonage bliss.
At work some time later, I called home to say hi to my wife, I couldn’t get through! Forgot what the message was or whatever it was, but I could call home. So I get back on the phone with Vonage and Comcast to figure out what is going on. This goes back and forth, off and on for the next couple of months, until finally some smart person at Vonage figured it all out and called the right people at Comcast. It turns out that Comcast never marked my phone number as ported, or what ever they do there. I was told all is OK again. Things where working.
Couple months later my in-laws, who still use Comcast phone, could get through to us, they where getting a quick busy or somthing like that. It turns out that Comcast has assigned our phone number to a new client of theirs. It only effects Comcast customers now, within their network, as in reality they have no rights over the number and the rest of the world knows the number is routed to Vonage. Again they fix it and again it is screwed up, this has been going on and on, and on for years now.
Not sure if this will help at all, but I contacted the FCC and reported Comcast keeps re-assigning our phone number. We will see where it goes from here.
I can’t wait, this is going to be great. This Thursday, Friday and Saturday I will be taking care of my kids, solo, while my wife is out of town. Being the IT Slug that I am and commuting 3+ hours a day I don’t get a lot of time with my kids during the week. Now I have my chance. I am taking the next two days off from work and spending it at home. ahhhh.
It would be great if we could go somewhere, like Downtown Chicago or something, but my eldest has school and other after-school activities, so that is out. Weather report looks positive, I get out of work for a few days and my kids get to see how nuts their father is. Oh, in case you are wondering my sons are 5 years and 19 months. What a great age.
Why do people have to lie, I just don’t understand it? There are three characteristics of people I just can’t tolerate, liars, cheats and thieves. In way they are one in the same, just a little different in execution. Anyway, I just don’t get it.
I have been really surprised by my usage logs that nobody in eve is using the Skill Ending Date Calculator on eve-igbtools.com. This is simply because it’s the tool I use the most. Perhaps it’s use just isn’t understood.
The basic idea behind it, and it’s really basic, is that it tells you exactly when your skill will be complete, to the second is you want.
In EVE when you train a skill it counts down for you how time you have remaining. This is listed as days, hours, minutes, and seconds. How many times have you counted on your hands to figure out which day, hour and minute the skill will end? Well don’t, use the Skill Ending Date Calculator.
Fill out it’s four fields, Days, Hours, Minutes, and Seconds (no field is required), and click the calculate button.
At the bottom of the page will be the completion time in five separate time zones:
UTC (EVE Server), Eastern US, Central US, Mountain US, and Pacific US
And of course I will add any other time zones requested by users. It’s that simple and you don’t need to do any of it in your head. You may then setup a reminder in your favorite task list. Which reminds me of an item I would like to do–email a reminder to the user so they may import into thier commonly used task list. Once the login class is complete, I can store the skill time for the user and send them periodic emails to remind them to change their skill. Sounds like it will be an interesting winter of programming.
If you are an EVE player, give the Skill Ending Date Calculator a shot, I think you will like it. If you have an idea for an EVE tool send it to me, I will see what I can do.
I really enjoy Alton Brown from the Food Network. His show “Good Eats“, has really taught me a lot about preparing foods over the last few years. I also own his book, “I Am Only Here For The Food”, which is an excellent read and gets into all the reasons why things work the way they do in the kitchen. It’s exactly the way I like to learn–why does it work that way–not just that it does.
Dinner is winding down and we are finishing our plates and Alton’s show is on the T.V. The episode is called, “What’s up duck” A good portion of this show is about thermodynamics–now don’t go changing the channel now, it not what you are thinking. Basically Alton is describing, with examples, the different methods to thaw frozen food, yes in this case duck. The opening question is, “Which method thaws frozen food the fastest (and safest?)?”
a. The refrigerator
b. On the counter top
c. Under cool running water
d. In a 200 degree oven
Well go ahead guess, you’ll get your answer soon enough.
On the show some actor has just made four or five small frozen ducks, and he is quite proud of them. Alton suggests that one goes into the refrigerator, on in sixty degree water, another on the counter, and the last in a two-hundred degree oven. While we watch Alton and this actor play this out my son asked what they are doing or what are they showing us, “How to melt ducks?”
At this point I really couldn’t contain myself and was rolling on the floor laughing. Needless to say after that and having to clean up dinner I didn’t get to see the rest of the show. It doesn’t really matter it will be on again. Most importantly my five-year old son delighted me with his keen observations of the world around him. It may not seem like much through this writing, but it was, you just needed to be there I guess.
Oh yeah the question. The fastest way to thaw the duck is using cool running water. I guess warm or hot water would be even faster, but everyone will be sick from your bacteria laden foul.
As I log into My Yahoo! account I am greeted with a message that a new updated version of My Yahoo! site is available as a beta site. Since Yahoo! usually lets you go back to the old version again, I thought I would check it out. Basically it has become the typical AJAX’d to hell big font “Web2.0” site. Fooy. I don’t get the new interfaces with all this Javascript, big-ass fonts, and bubbly edges, they are just such bloated pigs. The new font resolutions make it really difficult to use anything but a full-screened browser, which I hate to do. The UI is windowed for a reason. The My Yahoo! beta reminds me a lot of the new mail interface Yahoo! designed a few years ago. No I don’t use it either, it was just to slow and clunky of an interface back then, though I haven’t tried it again. Another part that irked me is that many of the modules I had on My Yahoo! page no longer worked on the new site. Why would you offer a new layout if many of the items which are used, aren’t available any longer? I don’t get that.
FogCreek Software’s FogBugz has done the same thing with their latest release, 6.0. Changed to this really fat font and some other layout changes. I understand UI changes always take some time to get used to, but even after three weeks using the product, it still doesn’t feel natural. Funny, reading Joel Spolsky’s blog, when he returned to New York after his first demo tour for FogBugz 6.0 he himself the UI has been stripped down way to much and it’s just horrible. It happens, anyone in development knows it. At least he is being smart about it and re-doing it from step one.
I have to say that I am happy that so far Yahoo! hasn’t forced me into using their new interfaces for their products. I don’t think that I am that stubborn when it comes to changes, I just expect at least to have the same functionality that I did in a previous version. Don’t make me take two steps backwards in functionality when you introduce a new product.
I would really like to know why web designers are thinking this new larger font is the way to go on web pages? I am seeing it more and more, and I still find it less appealing and usable.
So I have had my Latitude D830 for a little over a month now, and I have to say, I am not impressed. This is no shlock laptop, it has the 2.4 Duo cpu, 160G drive, 2G ram, 512M Nvidia Video. I even opted for the finger thingy (no haven’t set it up yet). This thing is so cheap and the dell drivers are a joke. Before I rant, I have to say, the 15″ wide-screen 1920 x 1200 screen rocks. It really is the only thing I am impressed with on this computer.
For all the resources this thing has, it’s slow and uses a shit load of ram when idle. Dell is sending these things with so much crap on them. No, I don’t want Google toolbar. No, I don’t want free music program. No, I don’t want utility x. Just leave them out of my build. It is so pathetic, I am still inches from trashing the thing and rebuilding. I mean my my T40 boots quicker and runs many apps at the same speed.
Let me tell you about the mouse driver. Why Dell went away from Synaptics drivers, I have no idea. Ok, I am sure it was a money thing, but you have to hear about how this driver of Dell works. Anyone who has used a laptop touch pad has probably experienced it’s scroll feature, were you slide your finder up or down on the far right edge of the touchpad to scroll through documents. The driver has a setting for scroll speed, which normally I like pretty quick on touchpads. What the Dell driver does, is change the mouse scroll value to a higher number of lines per detent, how freak’n cheap! So now when I use my external mouse, each detent on the mouse wheel is 9 lines, not very useful when programming or writing, or basically anything. It’s just crap. Another feature missing on the mouse pad is the ability to auto-scroll the window. You usually do this by sliding your finger up or down on the right edge all the way off of the touch pad (Synaptics instructs to “throw” your finger…).
OK, I am done for tonight, I am sure I will have more entries on the shit Dell is releasing these days.
Man what a great Summer it has been, as you can tell by the lack of posts here. So it goes. Haven’t done Jack on eve-igbtools.com at all, getting about 20 hits a day still, so at least someone likes the tools. And, no, there not my hits, as I haven’t been gaming either. Spending the Summer with the kids and it’s been great. Hoping to go to Door County this year, weekend after Labor Day. I sure do miss that rally.
I just found out today that Joel Spolsky is going to be in Chicago on September 7th. I can’t believe out of all the dates of his “World Tour”, he is going to be in Chicago when I am in Door. Freak’n figures. I was (still am) really looking forward to seeing his presentation on FogBugz 6.0. Really is just my luck.
As written in the Chicago Tribune and consumed at Yahoo.com
Nobel winner sorry for Bush comment
Published July 13, 2007
DALLAS, TEXAS — Nobel Peace Prize winner Betty Williams apologized Thursday for saying she could kill President Bush, remarks that shook up the International Women’s Peace Conference in Dallas.
Yes, you read right, “Nobel Peace Prize winner… apologized … for saying she could kill President Bush…”
I guess the peace really isn’t in her?
After four years it was time for a new notebook computer. My trustworthy IBM T40 wasn’t keeping up with my most demanding projects. It will be perfect for my secondary, plus I can rid myself of the eight year-old pc under my desk. Two notebooks, 4 screens, I think it will be a good setup.
Stuff From an IT Slug 